Introduction 3
In this example, the children actively enjoy playing
with the cars and blocks in the block area, but oppor-
tunities for both independent and cooperative learning
are limited. The cars and blocks stimulate their inter-
est, but there is no guidance or encouragement for
them to investigate ideas such as the ways blocks can
be stacked and balanced to make garages and bridges,
or the physical characteristics of the building materi-
als. Children’s interest and curiosity are clear, but the
potential for reflection, dialogue, and developing ideas
about some interesting and critical physical science
concepts is minimal. Moreover, there is little attention
paid to the fact that only boys are using the blocks, or
to developing strategies to give all children opportuni-
ties to build.
Teacher B notices the children’s interest in cars and decides
to do a project on bridges. She gathers many materials:
additional cars and a train set for the block area; books
about bridges; a poster of the Golden Gate Bridge; a
board game involving train tracks that wind over and
under one another on bridges; and a new cityscape puzzle
that includes the George Washington Bridge. She plans to
use the opportunity to teach the letter Bto the children as
well as the group game London Bridges. The teacher intro-
ducesthe project with a class discussion asking children
to share their experiences with bridges. She identifies the
areas in the classroom where there are bridge activities
and encourages children to spend some time at each.
During the week, she moves through the classroom sup-
porting children’s play and, during group time, encour-
ages them to talk about the bridges they’ve been building
for their cars and trains, and share what they’ve learned
about the different kinds and shapes of bridges. Toward
the end of the project, the children make a special trip to a
train station, take a ride on a train, and count the number
of bridges they go over.
In this example, children are surrounded by bridge
activities. The block area, the library corner, and the
manipulative table have bridge-related activities. The
basic literacy, math, and social skills the teacher is fo-
cusing on are addressed through these activities. The
children are engaged, and visiting the train station and
riding on the train are highlights of the week. But this
project with its bridge theme has little to do with sci-
entific inquiry and exploration of science concepts.
Teacher C also responds to her children’s interest in cars
and roads. But she decides that their interest could be the
beginning of an exploration of building structures and
building materials. When children build roads for their
cars, she observes their play and, in the context of their
story line, invites them to make multistory parking garages
for their vehicles. The next day, she uses a few minutes of
group time to show children photographs of the outsides
and insides of local parking garages. She also shows them
cardboard pieces and roof boards and mentions that she’ll
be putting them in the block area and at the building cen-
ter where, ahead of time, she’s placed two large boxes of
table blocks and a set of small cars. She introduces doll-
house people that will be added to the block area, and
three children who haven’t shown interest in block play
before ask to play there. The children request keeping
their roads and garages up overnight so they can continue
their play the next day, and she agrees. She also suggests
they use the clipboards and paper at the block area to
draw their structures, just in case they get knocked down.
At the end of the day, the group gathers to share a few
memories from the day. The teacher invites one builder to
share her problem of adding a third floor to her parking
garage, and her solution to stand cylinder blocks in the
middle of the second floor to support the third floor.
As in the other examples, children are enjoying
playing with the cars and the blocks, but in this case
they are engaged in an active, hands-on science in-
quiry project that illustrates the approach of the
Young Scientist series. The teacher builds on the chil-
dren’s interests and has defined a clear set of science
concepts to guide their work with blocks. While many
other skills are practiced and learned, science is in the
foreground.
She focuses the children’s attention on important
concepts about physical science:
• Forces of gravity, tension, and compression
• Design, stability, and balance
• Characteristics of objects with which children
build (such as shape and size)
• Characteristics of materials of which objects are
made (such as wood, foam, or plastic)
She encourages deeper thinking to enrich their ex-
periences without interfering in their own process of
questioning and exploration. As she does this, the
children develop their skills in the following: